SHILLONG: BJP state president Ernest Mawrie has disclosed that he had brought the burning issue of embezzlement of funds in district councils to the attention of chief minister Conrad Sangma two weeks ago. Only after getting no response from Sangma that he went public with the grave matter.
This startling disclosure also refutes the NPP state president WR Kharlukhi’s charge that the matter of alleged swindling of central funds by district councils, was not brought to the attention of the coalition partners by BJP.
Mawrie completely denied that BJP made public the allegations on corruption without the knowledge of the state government saying the party was aware of the rampant corruption and their central leaders had directed him to discuss the matter with the chief minister.
“Following the directive, I had discussed the issue with Chief Minister Conrad Sangma one on one long before” the matter was broken in the media.
“The Chief Minister had assured to speak to the CEM of both the autonomous councils, but nothing happened. I even called them and spoke to them about the corruption but nothing happened,” he alleged.
Mawrie said finding no response, and as the leader of a responsible national party, he could not be silent on such an important matter.
“The coalition cannot do whatever they want to,” he said adding that the chief minister should reply immediately in such a matter but they are waiting for almost two weeks now.
Patience of BJP was running out as the saffron party had already discussed the issue of pulling out from the MDA coalition with its central leadership and was awaiting their reply on it.
It has been more than a week since the BJP made the demand for conducting a CBI inquiry into alleged misappropriation of Rs 264 crore central funds awarded for developmental works in the two councils, but the MDA Government led by NPP had maintained complete silence.
Taking cognisance of the delay on the part of the Government to react on the corruption charge, Mawrie reiterated the demand for a CBI inquiry into the alleged corruption. “We have already discussed the matter with our central leadership and they will intimate us in a short time,” he said.
“I am pressing again for CBI inquiry. The CBI can do the inquiry anytime as the money has come from the centre and they don’t need to ask the state government before proceeding with the inquiry,” he said.
BJP legislators
have not raised issue
Meanwhile, District Council Affairs Minister Hamletson Dohling on Friday said that the government was yet to receive any official complaint from any quarters on the allegations on the misappropriation of funds in both the councils.
“We cannot constitute an inquiry without finding out if the allegations which were levelled were authentic or not,” Dohling asserted.
He also asserted that none of the BJP MLAs have raise this issue of misappropriation of funds as alleged by their own party. “We will discuss this matter if the BJP MLAs wants a discussion on this issue. But as of now, there has been no communication either verbally or in writing from either of the two MLAS of the BJP to express their concern on the allegations of misappropriation in the two ADCs,” the minister said. According to him, the government was open to examining the matter and if at any point of time if it felt that there was any seriousness in the allegations, the government would take a call to constitute an inquiry.
When asked whether the government welcomes the order of the NITI Aayog to constitute an inquiry into the alleged misappropriation of funds in the GHADC, he said that the question of the state government welcoming the order of the NITI Aayog does not arise.
“It is duty of the NITI Aayog to issue the order for inquiry into the matter related to the GHADC. We have nothing to comment on this,” the DCA Minister said.
